The Philadelphia Flyers failed to extend their winning streak to six games on Thursday night, falling 3-1 to Rick Tocchet’s Arizona Coyotes at the Wells Fargo Center.
Despite out-shooting Arizona 29-18, and doubling them up in shot attempts, the ‘Yotes defeated the Flyers in regulation. The loss was only Philly’s second 60-minute defeat on home ice this season.
Matt Niskanen scored for the orange and black in the final five minutes with Brian Elliott out in favor of the extra attacker to bring the Flyers within a goal, but Phil Kessel buried an empty netter, his second goal of the game, to put the game away with a minute remaining.
There’s no doubt Philadelphia carried play in this one, but Darcy Kuemper and a suffocating defensive effort stymied an offense that had begun to break out after a prolonged slump (The Flyers scored 16 goals in their previous three games, after netting only 19 in the 8 games before that).
There wasn’t much anger on the postgame, but there was a lot of wondering about how this team can come away with the results they deserve more often. Listen to it. It’s pretty good.
